


dark days

by funvee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e11 Alpha Pact, M/M, Minor Character Death, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 13:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funvee/pseuds/funvee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days they can’t do anything.</p><p>It’s not that they don’t want to, or that they won’t, but there are days when life and their heads just shut down, go black, and they can’t move.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dark days

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely unbetaed and written at 1am. There are spoilers for season 3 up until and including Alpha Pact. This is set in at vague future point from that particular episode, so if you don't mind spoilers, READ ON.
> 
>  

Some days they can’t do anything.

It’s not that they don’t want to, or that they won’t, but there are days when life and their heads just shut down, go black, and they can’t move. 

It’s amazing that they even work together, actually. What with Derek’s broken head full of traumatic, soul-crushing, all-encompassing guilt and Stiles’ manic, horrifying need to make sure that everyone gets out alive, to make sure that everyone’s safe. They both worry too much, and there are days when they can’t do anything other than lay next to each other and wait for the darkness to pass. 

Derek worries about the past, about what he’s done, how he’s somehow at fault for everything that’s gone wrong in Beacon Hills. Stiles has told him time and time again that it isn’t, that forces outside of his control shoved him around like a piece on a chessboard, but Derek still doesn’t believe him, and Stiles is starting to think that he won’t, ever. He tries, though, tries to make Derek see that it isn’t his fault, but the more and more Stiles looks at it, he starts to see that Derek is just a horrible decision maker. But there’s nothing to be done about the past, not anymore. What’s done is done, and they can’t change anything, no matter how hard they wish.

Stiles worries about what’s going to happen, about what they did that day in Deaton’s clinic. Had they done something wrong? Had they brought death and destruction, brought the wrath of the supernatural world down on their home town? His mind flops back and forth on these nights, panic wells up and bursts inside him until he’s shaking with it. 

What if they had let their parents die? It’s a small thought, tiny in the big black cavern of his mind in the middle of the night, when he’s under his own sheets, in his own bed, in his own room just a few feet down the hall from his father. It only ever comes when he’s alone, when the distractions of life have disappeared from around him, forcing him to think about what he would rather not. The thought always drifts along an imagined breeze until it dissipates into nothing. 

There was never even a discussion of not sacrificing themselves. No one had even considered it. 

But what if they had?

Would Beacon Hills be safer?

Would more innocent lives be snuffed out, because of what they did?

Should they have let their parents die?

Three lives for a city full of people?

Stiles can’t even think about that, he won’t.

 

And Derek.

What Derek did.

Three bright white lives blinked out at the touch of his fingers and for two, bite of his teeth. Erica, Boyd and Paige. Gone forever out of direct contact with him, out of his love and loneliness. 

His family. 

How must it feel, to be the cause of your family’s demise? Does it burn? Does it start a low smoldering fire down in your gut, burning and burning until your lungs are alight with the sheer awesome power of your guilt? Does it hurt to breathe, so sure that every gasp of air you’re taking in is going to turn to hot ash in your mouth until you can’t inhale at all? Does every move ache because you’re positive that you’re going to shatter apart into a million sharp splinters of glass at any moment? 

How does it feel to know you’re the only one left?

(Peter doesn’t count. Peter’s never counted.)

Stiles doesn’t know. 

What he does know is that sometimes Derek won’t talk to him for days, won’t leave his bedroom or even his bed. Stiles has long since given up hope that his presence will shake whatever demons Derek has collected, but he never leaves him alone. He can’t, not when he knows exactly what Derek’s replaying through his head, over and over like a glitch. Stiles will slip under the covers next to Derek and just be near. Talking never helps when the darkness takes over, sharing words doesn’t do anything but make the guilt keen and alive. So they lay in silence, and hours will pass or maybe days, but with time, the clouds clear and the sun returns and they go about their lives. 

 

They learned, after the Nemeton, that talking does more good than silence. 

Derek had told them everything, his eyes never leaving his own hands. He told them about Paige, about his mother, about what he knew of the supernatural. He whispered the bits about Kate, about what he had done, about what she had done through him, because of him. His whole life story had been bared, thrown into the wind to be judged by the pack around him. 

The day after that, that was the first day. Stiles had gone to him, gone to see if everything was okay, or as okay as it was going to be, when he found the loft dark, quiet and seemingly empty. Derek had been, of all places, under his bed, which he had only checked as a joke to himself. Stiles had shot off a million questions at Derek’s prone body, voice loud and harsh against the ear-ringing silence of the loft. Derek had simply rolled over onto his side, and turned his back to him. 

Stiles had climbed in after him, and after a while, understood. 

Derek returned to life after a solid 24 hours with the dust and dirt. 

The first time Derek finds Stiles with his monsters, he’s in the very back of his closet, under the hanging shirts and old jerseys, losing hold on the soft grip his skin has on him. His eyes were wide and dark, pupils blown, staring out into nothingness. HIs hands shake, twisting into claws and impossible shapes until Derek seizes hold of them and gently straightens his fingers out one by one. They breathe together, slowing Stiles’ heart down to normal rhythms until he calms down. 

They sit in the closet together for four hours before Stiles finally emerges.

 

The demons always come between the chaos. They never fail. It’s when things are quiet, when the cacophony of supernatural noise dies down that the creeping shadow of doubt and worry eats up the light and swarms their minds until they shake out of their skin. Sharp fingers seize hold of their limbs and drag them down, down, down until they can’t see anything but their own mistakes, their worries, repeating again and again. 

But something will always click or shift or pull and then suddenly, the light will seep back in.

  


  


**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr](http://funvee.tumblr.com/).


End file.
